1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved cremation box and roller system, and more particularly to a cylindrical body, e.g., a roller, and an adhesive applied to the cylindrical body for temporarily attaching the roller to the cremation box for loading into a crematory chamber.
2. Related Art
Prior art crematory devices have been used to load or otherwise move a cremation box, casket or other container into a chamber for cremation. Many prior art devices either a stationary roller positioned outside the crematory chamber such as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,890,367 which is incorporated by reference, a roller that is positioned in the cremation chamber prior to loading the cremation container described in the crematory operation manual of Crematory Manufacturing and Service (CMS) or none at all such as may be suggested by the support skids in U.S. Pat. No. 7,322,079 which is also incorporated by reference herein along with the other patent references cited in the accompanying information disclosure statement.
Prior to the present invention, there has been a safety issue with the use of the roller for loading the box in the crematory chamber according to known procedures, such as described in the CMS manual. According to the known procedures, the operator must reach into the preheated crematory chamber, which is approximately 1000° F., and places the roller on the brick floor of the crematory chamber. In placing the roller on the floor, it is possible for the operator to accidentally touch the floor or the side wall of the chamber causing bodily harm to the operator. Also, when the roller is placed in entrance of the chamber, the roller can actually roll further into the chamber which may cause the operator to reach into the preheated chamber to retrieve the roller and start over. This possibility increases as the floor of the crematory is worn by use.
With present roller systems, the dependability of the roller placement is also an issue. If the roller is not placed perpendicular to the travel of the box into the crematory chamber, it can shift causing it to go out of line and not work as a “rolling fulcrum” during the loading process. This is very common because of the nature of the loading process in which there is intense heat radiating from the chamber. Accordingly, the loading process happens in a matter of seconds to avoid being exposed to this intense heat and to avoid having too much heat escape from the chamber.
While prior art devices with a loader which has a frame and a slidable support surface greatly reduce the effort of the operator in loading the box into the chamber and do not have the safety and shifting issues of the roller and box systems, the costs of such loader systems are prohibitively expensive for many crematories. Accordingly, there is a need for a less expensive yet more reliable system to load cremation boxes into the crematory chamber. It would also be beneficial to provide a system which does not require much if any retrofits to the crematory chamber as this would also increase costs.